It can be quite scary to come from a family of accomplished filmmakers like Robin Tampoe and W. M. S. Tampoe. But Prof. Vilasnee Tampoe-Hautin, who wears many hats representing her academic side, views it all as a genuine blessing.
“The catalyst to my academic research on cinema and society was my father, a Ceylonese Tamil who made Sinhala films during the 1960s. A number of relevant questions could be raised about Sinhala cinema and its connections with minority communities. Just as much as the cinema industry reflected the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict during the formative phase of Sinhala cinema i.e 1950s, today, there’s a wind of change, – where many directors point out the absurdity of war and the need for reconciliation through their films,” said Prof. Tampoe-Hautin who has been teaching courses in British and Commonwealth cultural studies in the Department of English at the University of La Réunion, the French/European University in the Indian Ocean, since 2004.
‘Rebuffs but more resolved’: Daily News, October 23, 1968: Vilasnee with her father, sitting on the editing table, where her interest for the conservation of cinema heritage all began
Prof. Tampoe-Hautin was in Sri Lanka recently to take part in a conference about Sri Lankan Cinema organised by the French Embassy in Sri Lanka and the Maldives to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between France and Sri Lanka.
Held on December 1, the conference presented the growth of cinema in colonial and post-Independence Sri Lanka (Ceylon). It highlighted the groundbreaking efforts by individuals, both foreign and local, to consolidate its artistic, and industrial bases, including France’s contribution to both the development of Sinhala films as well as academic research on Sri Lankan cinema.
Focus on cinema and identity politics
Prof. Tampoe-Hautin’s doctoral research sets the seventh art within the wider context of colonial and post-history, an issue she further probed in her accreditation to supervise research (Habilitation à diriger des recherches) which she received at the University of Aix-Marseilles in 2014.
Her research has addressed various aspects of Indian Ocean cultural history, with a focus on cinema and identity politics in Sri Lanka, as well as socio-cultural and political movements in 19th Century Ceylon and their impact on nascent Sinhala cinema.
“I don’t think Indian Ocean cultural history can be set apart from the rest of the world. While retaining their specificities, our histories are bound together through a complex system of interaction and intersections. As such, one speaks of global history, connected histories, history of mentalities, and New Historicism. To give you an example, La Reunion, an Overseas Department of France, where I live, has a multi-cultural population, including those of Tamil origin, and descendants of Indian indentured workers.
Vilasnee, flanked by her parents, Rita and Robin Tampoe, and her grandfather, WMS Tampoe (extreme left)
Their origins are in South India, so a part of the Reunion Islands’ history can be traced back not only to India but also, to Madagascar, South Africa, China, and France, due to migration, colonisation, and the slave trade,” she said.
Queried if she found something fascinating through her research, she said that she did not find something you could dub specifically as a “scoop” at any point in her trajectory.
However, she did come across a few findings which have raised eyebrows.
“Research is about pooling and sharing one’s resources, working across disciplines and methodologies, in a pluralistic/multi-disciplinary posture, building on existing work, and giving credit to those who were there before you. At best my modest contribution was to introduce Sri Lankan cinema and its specificities to the French academic world, through my PhD and later my accreditation to supervise theses which I obtained from the Université of La Réunion and the Université d’Aix-Marseille.
“My French-English bilingualism enabled me to reveal to French scholarship that there was more to Asian cinema than meets the eye. That South Asian cinema did not just signify Indian cinema. That an island rich in perspective lay waiting for research to uncover its secrets and its mysteries,” she noted.
Two biographies of Sri Lankan filmmakers
Prof. Tampoe-Hautin has also focused on post-conflict cinema in Sri Lanka in relation to questions of (self)-censorship and freedom of expression. She is a member of the research centre UR 7387 DIRE – Déplacements, Identités, Regards, Écritures and has even authored two biographies of Sri Lankan filmmakers (Robin Tampoe, Last of the Big Ones (2008) and Sumitra Peries, Poetess of Sinhala Cinema (2011) as well as a two-volume study of Sri Lankan cinema published by L’Harmattan in 2011 in the “Collection Champs Visuels”, dir. Bruno Péquignot (Cinéma et Colonialisme: la genèse du cinéma au Sri Lanka (de 1896 à 1928) and Cinéma et Conflits ethniques au Sri Lanka: Vers un cinéma cinghalais “indigène” (de l’indépendance en 1948 à nos jours).
In 2015 she published Ethnicity, Politics and Cinema in Sri Lanka: Casting a Celluloid Mould from Sinhala Cinema, and co-authored or co-edited a number of other academic works including Mondes Parallèles dans les espaces coloniaux (XVIe-XXIe siècles) / Regards Croisés dans le monde indiano-océanique.
With her brother Sanjeeva Tampoe and part of their father Robin Tampoe’s Cinema legacy: the conservation of cinema heritage has always been a priority for the Tampoes, well before academic research began its focus on the materiality of cinema
“Sri Lankan cinema was for a long time in the shadow of Indian cinema but from the 1960s the eminent works of Dr. Lester James Peries and others took Sri Lankan cinema to new and exciting heights. These productions drew the attention of international juries to its originality and unique qualities – a style inspired by the documentary. I cannot say if cinema professionals took the wrong path. Every step of the way, one learns from one’s choices and they determine what will follow. Layer by layer, each period contributed to making the course of Sri Lankan cinema an outstanding one,” she opined as she traced the evolution of Sri Lankan celluloid.
Film conservation
Mention the present state of the local cinema industry and one topic which keeps cropping up from time to time is film conservation. In fact, Professor Tampoe-Hautin’s latest project deals with the study of the materiality of cinema, in particular the issue of the conservation of cinema heritage (film and non-film archives). This is the subject of her forthcoming book, ‘Bringing Back a By-Gone: Preserving Sri Lanka’s Cinema Heritage’.
“This project was interrupted by the health crisis and needs to be picked up again in the near future. This is a question that is so vital and relevant to us today,” she said.
Some years back Sri Lanka almost lost one of its greatest cinematic masterpieces, Dr. Lester James Peries’ ‘Nidhanaya’ (Treasure). The film had been included in the global list of 100 best films to be ever made that was compiled by the Cinematheque Institute of France to mark the World Film Centenary. It also won the award at Sri Lanka’s Golden Jubilee of Independence for being the best Sinhala movie in fifty years and has been critically acclaimed as one of the ten top Asian films of all time.
“As concerns ‘Nidhanaya’, released in 1972, Dr. Lester James Peries, in his 2008 interview with Tanya Uluwithia and Prof. Ian Conrich, spoke of how, way back in 1957, he met Henri Langlois (the Frenchman renowned for his initiatives to preserve cinematic heritage). The meeting acted as a catalyst to make Lester conscious of the importance of film heritage preservation, regretting that his exhortations went unheeded by the Sri Lankan authorities for whom the question of conservation was not a priority, at that time, thus leaving his film in a terrible state. Nevertheless, we have come a long way.
Commendable efforts
There are commendable efforts made at the international level by many countries to preserve their cinema heritage, be it film or non-film (cinema ephemera). A rescue mission was organised by the FIAF (Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film) in 2018, for the benefit of the National Film Corporation (NFC) 10 years after Lester’s regrets, to salvage some of Sri Lanka’s film archives. However, one should keep in mind that conservation is not just about restoring celluloid film. It must take into account, non-film. Preservation concerns everything that surrounds and contributes to making a film: from objects to edifices.
From the equipment and tools used to craft a film (cameras, projectors, editing tables, microphone rods) to the spaces that enable the final product to be shot and exhibited (studios and auditoriums). The burning question is, why not “preserve” a cinema hall? Or a famous studio in which some of our greatest classics of the silver screen were shot? Cinema does not inspire the same importance as say a temple or a monument of a famous person. Perhaps cinema suffered to a certain extent from being a “modern” invention.
Cinema, a heritage in itself
An invention of the colonial powers of yore, a reminder of submission. Even academic focus is often directed to the final product (the film) and neglects or shuns the material side of cinema. But we must remember that cinema is not only a precious instrument to chronicle other heritages, to record for posterity events that marked our history, but also, and especially, in itself, heritage. “Only recently has it got the attention it deserved by both authorities and the general public,” Prof. Tampoe-Hautin pointed out.
Conservation implies money. Funds are few and far between. International collaborations could entice countries that have money to assist those who do not. It is about negotiating, about prioritising.
“When people are starving, where should one invest? The global economic context being so gloomy, does not help either. Finally, it is only those who are passionate about protecting the environment and our heritage that will continue to militate and overarch themselves to reach these goals. Sri Lanka is no doubt part of the international partnerships to conserve cinema heritage.
The academic world is also now focused on researching the material side of cinema, in addition to the classic literary approach which is the study of author films as text. Cinema offers a gamut of possibilities for research (visual studies), – from the critical study of a film or software, through cinema as a social phenomenon, to its “hardware”.
While research has always used objects to study society and understand our past, only recently has it begun to take an interest in the objects and places of cinema. A good sign is that recently a symposium of researchers in cinema was held at a museum in Canada. The participants were surrounded by cameras and projectors there,” she exclaimed.
Cinema experience
Prof. Vilasnee Tampoe-Hautin’s publications in French and English on SL cinema
“As I speak, cinemas of yore are being demolished. Take the example of the Empire Theatre in Colombo which has given way to a high-rise building. This was a historic edifice, dating back to the 19th Century. Think of the Majestic. These structures that breathed history, our past, our childhood, and our adolescence have given way to economically viable mini-theatres, multiplexes which are adapted to our modern life: allowing the harassed mother to do her shopping, grabbing a burger and a drink for her children and then diving into the cinema with her bag of potatoes and the dress she just bought – to get some entertainment for the family before heading home. The whole sacred act of “going to the cinema” for a matinee show, to an auditorium dedicated just to show a movie, distinct from all the other mundane obligations of one’s daily life, is now gone forever.
In fact, cinema has lost its “apartness”, its distinctiveness. Cinema, through the economic strategies of companies which want to maximise profits, has been integrated into all our other down-to-earth activities – and that bag of potatoes,” she added with a mixture of passion and humour.
One has hardly heard about British and Commonwealth cultural studies at universities in this part of the world. Is this area of study popular in the West? How does it shape one’s future if a student decides to pursue studies in this area?
“The curricula for this area are vast at both the BA and MA levels (history, literature, phonetics, grammar, linguistics, with a number of geo-cultural areas in the English-speaking world like Australia, Canada, South Africa, US, UK, New Zealand). The Department of English at my University has an international staff of teachers from Mauritius, Mali, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Ireland, France, Great Britain, and Japan. Yes, it is a very popular area of study that attracts Reunionese students.
The prospects are many, including, teaching, journalism, tourism, publishing, translation,” she said, adding that what she finds most rewarding about the subject is that it opens vistas in terms of knowledge and methodologies.
Origins
Hailing from a family of six children Prof. Tampoe-Hautin says that they were exposed to cinema activity from production to exhibition from a young age. It is no wonder that her brother Sanjeeva Tampoe has taken over the helm from their father as he is a film professional.
“Sanjeeva was trained in movie-making, film distribution and exhibition, import and export of films. His son, my nephew, Antonio Tampoe, based in Brisbane, is a young and upcoming filmmaker, working on international productions, with a keen interest.
He too deals with questions related to cinema heritage and its preservation like me. My son, Etienne, drew inspiration about cinema through my father, and my own academic anchorage in Sri Lankan cinema. He has ambitions to enter the field in some way or the other. The cinema tradition therefore is alive and well in the family,” she expressed with a smile.
Prof. Tampoe-Hautin reiterates her gratitude to the excellent studies on aspects of Sri Lankan cinema by film specialists, written in Sinhala and in English, to institutions and associations in the country: the NFC, the Government Film Unit (GFU), and the Asian Film Centre (AFC).
“Without their assistance, I would not have been able to give Sri Lankan cinema the exposure to the non-English speaking countries it so deserves. For me, it represents a true collaboration between countries and languages, cutting across colonial schemas and patterns, since France and Sri Lanka do not have a common colonial history. It is a duty to my country which I obliged,” she said.
